1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to an encryption device. More particularly, the present invention relates to the encryption of a signal through use of a multi-functional integrated optics chip or MIOC.
2. Background Art
The ability to encrypt and decrypt data is becoming increasingly important as e-mail, data files, voice transmissions, and other transmissions travel the Internet. The majority of encryption algorithms focus on encryption of data using software techniques and complex protocols such as a public key/private key system. The software reads plain text and translates it into crypto-text according to the encryption algorithm. The crypto-text is then generally transmitted to another location where a software program uses a key applied to the crypto-text to decrypt the data.
These software methods can be slow and cumbersome particularly regarding the demands that can be made on computer processors by encryption and decryption software. This type of encryption is also vulnerable to unauthorized decryption. For example, the public key/private key system is an asymmetric encryption algorithm. The encryption key is generally available to the public and is therefore vulnerable to chosen-plaintext attacks. Also, the public key/private key system requires the use of prime numbers, increasingly large prime numbers for improved security. Prime numbers become scarcer as they increase in size and require an increasing amount of computational time to obtain. Thus, a high-speed hardware-based encryption device that does not rely on the use of prime numbers is desirable.